Award-winning historical drama series which traces the life of John West from his impoverished youth in the depression of the 1890s, to his death as a multi-millionaire some sixty years later. His rag-to-riches career is peopled with a fascinating assortment of Australian life, reminiscent in its richness of Dickens or Tolstoy. For the Battlers in the Melbourne slums, there were two ways to beat the bosses: one through organised labour and the growing trade union movement, and the other by challenging the establishment on its own ground through the acquisition of wealth and power. John West chose the latter course. Based on the 1949 book by Frank Hardy (26 x 50min)